Steel be with me
by NCR Ranger
Summary: The knife. Beautiful in its simplicity. Is it a wonder, that no matter how the arsenals of the most advanced military and fighting forces become, they continue to wield the knife ?


_" The enemy commanders think we can't reach them. They sit confident behind their tens of thousands of soldiers, and defensive lines that are miles deep. They've accounted for everything, except one: US._

_Make ready to meet God, boys: We drop in 2 minutes. "_

\- Lieutenant Julia May, 144th Orbital Drop Shock Trooper Battalion, aka " The Howling Banshees "

* * *

November 14th, 2558

Phoenix-class colony vessel UNSC_ ' Spirit of Fire '_

Low orbit over Installation 00, aka " The Ark "

Shipboard clock: 0745 hours

Berthing compartment Delta-5

Sunray 1-1's quarters

* * *

_Scrrch, scrrch, sccrch_

The edge of a combat knife didn't keep _itself_ sharp.

_sccrch, sccrch_

Nolan Vaughn tugged the lethal side of his knife back yet again over the whetstone, with sharp and focused, back-and-forth sawing motions of his right arm. He carefully made sure to draw the entire length of the weapon, from tip to hilt.

_scrrch_

Built of a high-density alloy of pure Titanium and Tungsten, the knife's serrated blade threw off a spark, as it was dragged over the whetstone. The dozens of metal teeth that ran along the blade's edge were each a weapon themselves, and they had to be maintained. They ran along the edge in a staggered way, placed so they could as effectively as possible shred and tear what they were getting used against.

Flesh, metal, fabric. No matter what was getting cut, the knife would cut quickly, courtesy of its teeth.

_sccrch_

Every contact with the whetstone wore away the dullness on the deadly teeth, wore away more of their harmlessness. It sculpted them instead, molding them back into the deadly instruments they were supposed to be. Repeated and heavy combat use , over the course of enough long months robbed them of that somewhat, and that was something which could be very fatal indeed for the trooper who's knife this was.

Knives had been carried into battle from the dawn of armed conflict itself, from before history had begun to be recorded by anyone, right up until the present day. An era with FTL travel, railguns, AIs, and suits of powered armor, and the _knife_ was still getting taken into action.

_sccrch_

There was a reason for that. Knives didn't jam. Knives didn't run out of ammo. Knives, were _quiet. _A squad of Unggoy, who'd made the fatal error of thinking they could take the risk of falling asleep in the field, and had actually done so ? Your knife would and could put an end to all of them, slicing their thickened throats and puncturing their domed, spiny skulls as they slept, all tightly curled up and snoring nasally.

They would hardly make a sound, only emitting gasping, rasping wheezing as they died where they lay.

Or, maybe you'd be facing a towering Sanghelli ? One of the split-jawed aliens might be standing over you, about to bring his energy sword- so white hot that waves of heat visibly radiate off it, glowing cyan-down to cleave your head clean off your shoulders. Your BR55 was empty; your knife was the only weapon you had to hand. Against the fearsome power of the energy sword, which had been seen to bisect many a soldier cleanly at the waist as easily as scissors cutting tape, it seemed woeful, and inadequate.

Then, as you buried the tip of the 7inch length of alloyed metal into the hinge-head's leathery neck, felt the tip get stuck in the alien's flesh, and listened to his enraged roaring become only gurgling coughing, you realized that if the knife had been deadly enough for the Ancient Greeks, and for the Rashidun Arabs, then it was deadly for you too.

_scrrrch_

The flickers of the memory, of when Vaughn had gone face to face with a Sanghelli Major and somehow lived to tell about it, were brief, but strong. The humble knife had saved him that day- as much as his own skill with it had, along with divine intervention that it wasn't his moment to go.

_He nearly had me, that hinge head. It was a close call_

_Every fight with a Sanghelli is_

Vaughn looked down at the knife in question. He'd been at this a while.

He lifted it up from the stone a bit, to examine it. After this much sharpening, he was satisfied it had been thourghly

Every inch of the weapon mattered. Every inch had a story behind it.

The hilt, the grip. Both still had that comforting weight to them. The UNSC-issued combat knife was balanced for throwing, and you could get a sense of that well-placed weight from holding it even for a second. The actual materials of the pebbly, textured grip were slip-proof, ensuring that no matter how slippery your hands were ( with, _anything_ ), you could get them around the knife, and use it in a heartbeat.

At the hilt's base, was the crest of the UNSC: the iconic eagle with wings raised high, and a shield covering the bird's chest, bearing the boldly printed acronym ' **UNSC**' . Beneath was a globe ( clearly representing Earth ), ringed by stars, and superimposed over by a banner that carried the UNSC's motto: "_Per Mare, Per Terras, Per Constellatum._"

_By sea, by land, and the stars. _

_Yeah, _I_ haven't been in a naval battle; that's for the NAVY. Only a humble ground pounder I am_

Then, there was the ash-colored blade itself. Deadly to a fault, all 7 inches of it. It didn't glint under the overhead lighting; glinting was a surefire way to give away your position to anyone in weapons range of you. What it_ did_ do, though, was cut swiftly ( with the proper application of force ) through and pierce deeply, a_ wide_ range of materials, from UNSC military issue duct tape to hemp rope , to the skin of a Sanghelli and the armor they wore.

Its sides were as smooth as metal tends to be, marked with countless scratches from every stab and slash it'd been through. Its tip was pinched to a narrow point, allowing it to be easily yanked out of a wound it'd inflicted without getting stuck, regardless of whether you'd thrown it or kept it in hand.

_Haven't actually done that- a throwing attack. Always seems more like a party trick_

Vaughn ran this thumb along the knife's flank, letting it glide over the engraving he'd made on it: a silhouette of a longhorn skull. A subtle, but long lasting reminder of his Texan roots. It was vital to remember where he'd come from.

_A real long way from where I began. _

_Taken a** long** while to get from there to here_

He turned the knife over once or twice, thinking about that.

About the beginning of that long journey, to be more specific. The knife, _his_ knife, had been there even back then.

Been there for him.

* * *

Before his ODST days, and_ long_ before the Covenant, he'd been a run of the mill UNSC marine, deployed to combat Insurrectionist forces on the outer colony world of Capella.

It'd been Vaughn's first combat tour. He'd left behind his luxurious and basically spoiled lifestyle on Earth to sign on with the Marines, and fresh out of basic, they'd sent him to Capella. To help bring down that corner of the Insurrection that had been plaguing the UNSC for so many years.

As a monsoon ( there was no other word for how hard the rain had been falling that day ) poured down, his platoon slugged it out with a heavily armed Insurrectionist cell that had hunkered down in an abandoned steel mill somewhere out in the boonies. The ground was a quagmire, with everyone's boots sinking an inch deep with each and every step. The enemy were ghosts- phantoms that only revealed themselves through the millions of impossibly tightly packed raindrops by the red-orange muzzle flashes of their outdated HMG-38 machine guns, and MA3 assault rifles.

It was Battle of the Wildnerness-level confusion, and easier than it seemed for the battle lines to merge- if there'd ever been any lines at al, with the Innsurectionists throwing themselves in waves at the dug in UNSC Marines. Vaughn, a PFC who was also a FNG, had been on the tail end of his squad's spread out formation, straining to hear orders over the volleys of gunfire, while _kneeling_ in that sucking mud, his MA5B held in a vise grip and going off in _short controlled bursts _when he got a halfway decent look at a target.

He had his knife, but it was sheathed. No need for a _knife_ when there was such heavy incoming. Bullets whipped by his head, hissing ,shattering the air around them, making his ears sting.

Until, there _was_. Someone began screaming from the right, and for a full second, Vaughn thought Markus had been hit. His pulse boomed, but then he recognized who it wasn't.

An Insurrectionist soldier, clad in battered armor and fatigues as outdated as the HMG-38s, came flying out of the mist, and bore down on him from the furthermost corner of his field of view, with a entrenching tool clenched in one fist.

It came swinging down, but Vaughn instinctive reaction saved himself; he brought his rifle up and parried the strike. In doing so, though, the MA5 was sent spinning out of his hands, and splashed into the morass of mud.

The Insurrectionist didn't give in, though, and rushed him yet again.

Staggering, getting his balance back, Vaughn's right hand came up, scrabbling and pawing over his web gear for the one thing he needed right now more than anything in the universe:

That knife.

He got ahold of it, and drew the weapon, aware of how everything was happening in half seconds now. Dimly heard around him, he heard more frenzied yelling and bellowing. It sounded like a full on banzai-style charge was getting launched at the UNSC line !

Or at least, that's what Vaughn _thought_, because the Insurrectionist swung the tool with vicious intensity, aiming squarely for Vaughn's face with the tool's jagged metal edge.

Rather than attempt to parry again, Vaughn threw himself into a shoulder charge. Something grazed his cheek, leaving a powerful_ burning_ sensation, as he cannoned into his opponent, toppling both of them into the mud with a mix of grunts, and a barrage of swearing that would leave a drill sergeant red faced.

Soaked and smothered all over his front with chilled rainwater, and clinging, cloying mud, Vaughn pushed himself up. He still felt the texture of the knife in his right hand, and knew he still held it.

Acting automatically, like he wasn't thinking, only reacting, he pounced onto the Insurrectionist, who was rolling up onto one side, the deadly short shovel still at the ready.

_Booom ! _A muffled detonation of _another_ grenade- God knew how many had already gone off by now- sounded from a indeterminate point, somewhere in the maelstrom of driving rain.

"-_charging again_ ! ", someone roared.

Vaughn stabbed down with the knife, only for his wrist to hit something metallic; the damn tool's handle. It sent a bolt of pain, the kind that comes from getting hit by something made of metal, shooting all the way through, but riding on volatile cocktail of pure adrenaline and primal anger, Vaughn didn't notice it much. Still holding the knife, he reached over with his left hand, wrapping it around the hilt and digging the the ends of those fingers into the top of his right.

" Screw you, screw you.", rasped the Insurrectionist, as Vaughn dug his boots into the mud as deep as they'd go, pushing up and furiously attempting to gain leverage. His opponent fought to buck him off; Vaughn responded by practically_ lunging_ forward, putting as much body weight as he could directly _over_ the knife.

_Save it for yourself !_ Vaughn looked his enemy in the eye, and saw a lot of anger there. Maybe there was fear too, but all that stood out was rage. Loathing. Disdain.

Actually, it didn't matter what he saw- fear or anger, or both. Vaughn had his knife in hand, his enemy right in front of him, and only _one_ of them was getting out of this alive.

_That will be **me**_

He did all he could to jam the knife home.

" **Grrrrh** ! ". With a snarl, he let weight and gravity take over pushing and falling down onto the hilt of the knife, still barred by the narrow shovel handle. His enemy was stubborn as heck, but so was Vaughn.

There was no way he was dying here. No way at all. He was not going to die by, getting beaten to death with a damn _shovel_ !

There was nothing else on his mind right now. Vaughn strained to get the knife to go where he wanted.

" Get, get _this_\- ! "

With the resistance he'd been facing for the last few seconds, the way the knife abruptly moved downwards caught Vaughn by surprise.

" Come on, die- "

He went along with it, as the tip punctured the enemy soldier's chest. At least a inch of sharpened alloy metal sank in, cutting and slicing through.

" **Hkkgh**\- ! "

_Shhkl !_

_Shhhhk._

The knife, with Vaughn still on top of it, and still holding it with both hands in a iron grasp, sank in.

To the hilt, and there it stuck fast.

* * *

That was over a decade ago.

Not counting the 28+ years spent locked in cryo, it had been 10 years ago. It had been Vaughn's first confirmed kill.

Not with a bullet, but with a knife. A bit of sharpened metal, 7 inches long.

The exact same knife, that he held right here, right now, as he sat in this corner of the barracks of the _Spirit of Fire, _a ship that was as far from Capella as you could get.

_You saved me._

He turned the knife back over, wondering what would've happened if he hadn't had the knife in that battle. Would he have survived ? Would someone else had saved him, instead of Vaughn saving himself ?

It was a question that burbled up on occasion, and at this exact moment, on the edge of his bunk , with only the ceaseless, distant base _thrmmm, thrmmnn,_ of the atmosphere processor for an audio background, Vaughn realized that the answer was always the same:

_I had this knife._

He glanced up at the ceiling.

_God, when I die, do bury me deep, but not with my MA5._

_Leave my knife by my side, please._


End file.
